FRAUD-X: An Integrated AI, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity Framework With Early Warning Systems for Mitigating Online Financial Fraud: A Case Study From North Macedonia

Online financial fraud remains a pervasive threat, incurring billions of dollars in global losses annually. Mid-sized markets, such as North Macedonia, face acute challenges as digital adoption in the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector outpaces the establishment of robust, multi-layered security systems. This paper introduces FRAUD-X, a unified framework merging artificial intelligence (AI)–based anomaly detection, blockchain-driven transaction verification, cybersecurity intrusion detection, and real-time early warning mechanisms into a single pipeline. Drawing upon three datasets—a Credit Card Fraud dataset (Kaggle), the PaySim Mobile Money dataset, and collected 50,000 anonymized local BFSI transactions from North Macedonia—FRAUD-X demonstrates a ~2–4% improvement in F1 compared to single-plane AI approaches, with ~90% recall for zero-day threats. Key enhancements include: 1) a permissioned blockchain for tamper-proof ledger entries, 2) synergistic AI-cybersecurity integration for dynamic risk scoring, and 3) real-time alerts that reduce reaction windows from hours to mere minutes. The framework runs at ~15–16 ms per transaction (~33% CPU usage), supporting near-real-time BFSI operations. Ablation studies confirm that each synergy layer (blockchain, cybersecurity, and early warning) significantly contributes to overall performance. A security analysis illustrates how FRAUD-X mitigates node compromise, collusion attempts, and advanced persistent threats (APT). By providing a replicable roadmap that balances high detection accuracy with operational feasibility, FRAUD-X offers practical value to BFSI entities in North Macedonia and comparable mid-scale markets.